


The Thing About Pre-Med

by theprincessandtheking



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: College AU, Doctor Clarke, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Med Student Clarke, Pre-Med Clarke, Sick Bellamy, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 09:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9881546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprincessandtheking/pseuds/theprincessandtheking
Summary: The thing about being pre-med is that people think you know stuff. They think they can come up to you and tell you about the cough they’ve had that just won’t go away, or ask about the weird tingling sensation they get on the back of their knee and just expect you to be able to tell them exactly what’s wrong with them. And sure, you can probably tell them that the trapezius muscle is innervated by the spinal accessory nerve or that hemoglobin has a quaternary structure made up of four polypeptides that each interact with an iron atom that gives it the ability to carry oxygen through the bloodstream. But at the end of the day, you don’t know shit about medicine.Which is why Clarke feels more than a little bit panicked when her friends start treating her like their personal doctor.





	

The thing about being pre-med is that people think you know stuff. They think they can come up to you and tell you about the cough they’ve had that just won’t go away, or ask about the weird tingling sensation they get on the back of their knee and just expect you to be able to tell them exactly what’s wrong with them. And sure, you can probably tell them that the trapezius muscle is innervated by the spinal accessory nerve or that hemoglobin has a quaternary structure made up of four polypeptides that each interact with an iron atom that gives it the ability to carry oxygen through the bloodstream. But at the end of the day, you don’t know shit about medicine.

Which is why Clarke feels more than a little bit panicked when her friends start treating her like their personal doctor.

It doesn’t start out as a big thing: Monty picked up a cold after their friends had spent a late night out in the cold drinking cheap liquor in a field off campus. He had come to her a couple of days later asking about the best cold meds to buy from the CVS down the street, and Clarke had advised him to pick up the generic brand after extensive assurance that _yes_ , they really were the same thing and to buy some kind of sports drink to replenish his electrolyte levels.

Somehow word had gotten around. Before she knew it, Raven was asking her how best to bandage the blisters on her hands from the wrenches she used for her part-time job as a mechanic, and Jasper was flashing his bare ass wanting to know what kind of rash he had and whether he needed to see a doctor (she didn’t even want to begin to relive that one).

“This is getting out of hand,” she huffs to Bellamy one day after relaying the story of Harper’s weird mole-ish thing (she had no idea what it was, to be honest) she had shown to Clarke with a few days prior. She takes a long sip from the coffee she’d ordered when they arrived, watching the corners of his eyes crinkle with humor as he fiddles with the napkins on their table and struggles to subdue a grin.

“Not so easy being Dr. Clarke?”

“That’s the _problem_ ,” she groans, fingers tangling into the roots of her hair and letting out a frustrated sigh, “I’m not a doctor. I’m a sophomore. In undergrad. I know nothing.” She lets her head fall pathetically onto the table, shielding her face with her arms like a petulant child.

“Good thing you’re paying so much money for such a quality education,” he teases.

Her head snaps back up to meet his smirking gaze.

“You do realize it takes eight fucking years to become a doctor, right? And even after that there’s still three to ten years of more training in residency. I’m, like, 15% of the way done. If that.”

He tears off the corner of the croissant that sits on the plate in front of her, ignoring her noises of protest, and deadpans, “You’re practically an ignoramus.”

“Exactly,” she says, ignoring his sarcastic tone. “If this were drivers’ ed and I was only 15% done, I’d still be reading the damn handbook. They wouldn’t even let me near a car. But suddenly it’s okay for me to be making life and death decisions about a person’s body?”

"I feel like that might be a bit melodramatic," he scoffs. "And it’s not like you know absolutely nothing. What about that time Miller told you about that earache he was having, and you told him it was an infection he should probably get checked out? You were right, and he ended up avoiding a trip to the emergency room because of it.”

“Lucky guess,” she shrugs, fingers drumming a light rhythm on the lid of her coffee cup.

“Or that time that kid had that seizure in the student union? You were the only one there who knew to turn him onto his side.”

She rolls her eyes. “Please. That’s basic stuff everyone learns when they’re kids. No different than ‘stop, drop, and roll.’”

“What the hell kind of elementary school did you go to?”

She stifles a snicker, ignoring the slight heat rising to her cheeks. It was nice to know that her best friend had faith in her, even if she didn’t. “When my mom worked all the time, the only way I could really spend time with her was to shadow her around the hospital,” she says with a shrug. “You pick up a few things. I spent my eighth birthday learning the proper technique for wrapping a sprained ankle.”

“See?” Bellamy quips, gesturing vaguely with his cup, “You already knew more than the average adult by the time you’d finished the second grade.”

She lets out a breathy laugh, one hand reaching up to tug absentmindedly at the ends of her blonde waves. “I don’t know. I just—I’m terrified of getting it wrong, you know?” She traces the letters of her name written on the coffee cup in front of her with a finger, focusing far more attentively than the task requires. “What if someone comes to me with something and I tell them that they’re fine, and it turns out to be something really bad? What if I miss it?”

“You won’t.”

She finally glances up at Bellamy. His eyes bore into hers with an intensity and confidence that makes the tension in her shoulders soften. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” he says firmly, his hand reaching across the table to rest on the hand still mechanically tracing the black-inked ‘C’ on her cup. “You won’t miss it.”

* * *

 

A few weeks later, everyone piles around the tiny laptop screen in Raven’s tiny dorm room in a halfhearted attempt of a movie night.

“This,” Jasper whines, “was the worst idea ever. Raven, why didn’t you bring a TV to college like a normal person?”

“I think the better question is why did we choose to have a movie night in the one room that doesn’t have a TV?” Clarke grumbles from her spot on the floor between Harper and Bellamy, adjusting her shoulders in an attempt to find a more comfortable position against the wall behind her.

A chorus of dissent travels across the group as Monty urgently shushes them with an insistent, “Shut up, this is the best part!”

They continue like that for a while, making jokes about the ridiculous dialogue and terrible acting between someone’s complaints that they can’t see or hear the movie, all the while with Monty grumbling that they’re ‘ruining his favorite movie’ and that they ‘shouldn’t even _have_ a movie night if no one’s going to watch.’

They’re a little over an hour in when Clarke realizes Bellamy has been notably quiet.

“Hey,” she whispers, playfully knocking her knee into his own, “you okay? You haven’t bitched about the historical inaccuracies once during this entire movie.”

“I’m fine.”

She bristles at his short tone, feeling him tense next to her as he leans his head back against the wall behind them. She waits for him to say more, but no response comes.

“You sure?”

His eyes close as she scrutinizes him. She watches his jaw tighten.

“Yeah,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ve just had a headache all day. No big deal.”

She pats his knee apologetically and turns back to the movie. Her attention for the remainder of the night switches between the atrocity of a film on the tiny screen and making sure Bellamy is okay. He doesn’t say anything else, but she notices that his jaw is still ticking and his eyes are still closed when she checks on him.

When the movie finally ends, the group lets out a resounding sigh of relief as Raven cheers, “Thank God!” The next half hour is a blur of people gathering their respective pillows and blankets as they issue sleepy ‘goodnights’ and ‘drive safes.’ Clarke sees Bellamy say a quick goodbye to Raven and slip quietly out the door. She hurries behind him to catch up to his long strides.

“Bellamy,” she calls, speeding up her pace as he stops at the stairwell. “Are you driving home?”

He shakes his head. The previous summer, Bellamy had leased a 2-bedroom apartment just off campus to share with Octavia once she enrolled at Ark University.

“Octavia took my car to go visit Lincoln,” he tells her. “I’m just going to walk.”

She shakes her head, her stomach lilting at the idea of him walking home alone at night when he just seemed so…off.

“No, you’re not,” she insists. “My car’s right downstairs, let me drive you home.”

“I’ll be fine, Princess. It’s just a few blocks.” He turns toward the door to the stairwell, already reaching for the handle, but Clarke catches his shoulder.

“Come on. It’s really not any trouble,” she assures him. “Please?” She senses the hesitation in his stance. His already sluggish movements slow even further. She can feel him caving as she presses, “For my own peace of mind.”

He turns to her with a resigned grimace.

“Fine,” he says, rubbing his tired eyes, “but only because you said please.”

She gives him a small grin, her hand unthinkingly grazing his broad shoulders to guide him toward the door. She trails behind him down the stairs, watching him rub gingerly where his neck tapers down to his shoulders. He tilts his head slightly to the side, allowing her to see the wince that flits across his face.

“That hurt?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says.

“That’s a yes.”

He lets out a tired chuckle. He holds the door for her as they exit the stairwell, and again as they reach the main entrance of Raven’s building. Clarke is silently thankful the parking lot outside of her own building a block away had been full when she had returned to campus earlier that day, forcing her to park just out front of the dorm she and Bellamy were leaving. Though she knows he’s doing his best to hide his discomfort, she can see the stiff way he carries himself, looking as though he’s trying to minimize his movements as much as possible.

“Seriously, are you okay?” she asks when she sees his grimace as he ducks to slide into her passengers’ seat. She doesn’t miss the lilt of concern in her voice, and judging by the way he turns to her with reassurance in his eyes, Bellamy doesn’t either.

“Clarke, really,” he says, “I’m fine. I think I just hurt my neck at the gym earlier today. No big deal.” The smile her gives her seems a little forced, but lets it slide, ignoring the vague anxiety at the back of her mind.

“You should ice that when you get home,” she advises. “Take some ibuprofen, too, it’ll help if there’s inflammation. And no gym tomorrow, okay?”

“Whatever you say, Dr. Clarke.”

She lets out an exasperated sigh as she pulls out of the parking lot, a smile creeping onto her face in spite of herself. She’s relieved he’s feeling well enough to tease her, even if he still doesn’t seem quite right.

“Looks like rain,” he notes, his drowsy eyes examining the sky. “Hope Octavia doesn’t stay out too late. She doesn’t need to be driving home in a storm.”

“She could always stay over at Lincoln’s.”

Clarke is fairly certain that Bellamy’s gaze would have snapped to hers had his neck not been causing him so much pain. Even still, she saw him side-eyeing her with more than a little distaste.

“That’s not funny.”

“Oh come on,” she says with a snort, “it’s a _little_ funny.”

They fall into a companionable silence for the rest of the drive, Clarke keeping her eyes on the quickly darkening sky while Bellamy can’t seem to keep his eyes open. Though only a few minutes have passed by the time she pulls into the parking lot outside of his building, she has to call his name twice before he finally jolts awake.

“Sorry,” he says gruffly, already reaching for the seatbelt buckle. He stiffly exits the car, poking his head around the car door before shutting it. “Make sure you get back before the rain hits.”

“I will,” she assures him. “I’ll let you know I made it back okay.”

He nods, cringing at the jolt that comes along with it. He shuts the car door, turning to the staircase that leads to his floor.

Before his foot can reach the first step, Clarke rolls down her window and calls, “Hey. You’re sure you’re okay?”

He turns back to her with a weary smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I’m fine, Clarke. Scout’s honor.”

“You weren’t a Scout,” she points out, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She locks eyes with his, her tone becoming more serious. “Promise you’ll call if you need anything? Ice pack, a cheeseburger run, whatever.”

“I promise,” he says, his expression softening.

She gives a curt nod, offering a quick goodnight as she rolls up her window. As she pulls out of the parking lot, she does her best to silence the nagging voice in the back of her mind telling her that something isn’t right. 

* * *

 

Clarke isn’t sure what time it is when she awakens to her phone buzzing violently on her windowsill. She fumbles for the device with clumsy fingers and presses it to her ear.

“Yeah?” she grumbles, her voice still rough from sleep.

“Clarke.”

Any residual drowsiness instantly dissipates when she hears the voice on the other end. She glances at the clock across the room: _1:12 am_.

“Octavia?” she says, sitting up so fast she knocks one of her pillows to the floor. “What? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Bellamy,” Octavia replies, and though her voice is low, she can hear the tone of alarm that underlies her words. “I just got home. I stayed at Lincoln’s until the storm passed, and when I walked in the door I saw him sleeping on the couch so I tried to go wake him up to get him to go sleep in his bed but he’s _burning up_ , Clarke, and any time I get him to try to move he just groans and says he’s fine where he is and I don’t know what to do and I didn’t know who else to call—"

“Okay,” Clarke breathes, cutting off the younger girl’s panicky rambling. “Octavia, you have to calm down. Get him some water and make sure he drinks all it, he’s probably dehydrated. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

She hangs up the phone abruptly, throwing on the first shirt and pair of sweatpants she can get her hands on. She snatches her car keys off the kitchen counter on her way out the door and hurries down the stairs to the parking lot. She spends the short drive chewing her lip so hard she could swear it’ll bruise, reminding herself that she must stay calm, that she can’t help Bellamy if she’s too rattled to think.

He’ll be fine, she tells herself. He has to be fine.

She’s a blur as she bolts out of her car and across the Blakes’ parking lot, throwing herself up the two flights of stairs until she’s knocking on their door so hard her knuckles ache. Octavia answers almost immediately.

“Thank God,” she sighs, stepping back to let her in the door. Clarke bypasses her, taking a direct route to the figure splayed across the couch. “He’s just kept getting warmer since I got here. I can’t keep him awake long enough to tell me anything.”

Clarke kneels by the couch, placing the back of her hand lightly against Bellamy’s cheek. She feels her stomach leap into her throat at the amount of heat radiating off his skin. A thin sheen of sweat shines on his forehead, his inky curls sticking to it like leaves on pavement after a storm.

“Bellamy,” she calls softly, her fingers brushing the damp tendrils from his face. His eyes flutter open beneath her fingertips.

“Clarke?” His eyes, glassy with fever, meet hers without focusing.

“Hey,” she greets with a soft smile, “how you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” he says, the corners of his lips teasing a smirk.

“No,” she tells him softly, her hand sliding down to pat his shoulder gently, “you’re not, but you’re going to be. Have you been drinking water?”

He nods, and as soon as his chin dips he flinches violently. Clarke feels her breath catch in her throat.

“Bellamy, did that hurt?” she asks quickly, her hand going up to gently prod his shoulder at the base of his neck.

“What tipped you off?”

She ignores his sarcasm, her fingers moving deftly over his feverish skin, testing the muscle groups there. He doesn’t react until her fingers reach a spot near the base of his neck just over his spine.

“I would really appreciate it if you could _not do that_ ,” he says through his clenched jaw.

She mutters a quick apology before pulling his blanket back over him, trying to alleviate the chills that have come along with his fever. She quickly turns back to Octavia.

“Did Bellamy ever get the meningococcal vaccine before he left for college?”

“What?” Octavia replies, her fingers pushing her hair back as she struggles to answer Clarke’s question. “No, I don’t think so. Our mom was allergic to a bunch of medications. She said when Bell got his kindergarten shots he had a bad reaction to them, and the doctors thought the allergies were probably genetic, so neither of us were vaccinated unless it was absolutely necessary.”

Clarke pauses, weighing her options. Her eyes drift to the freckled skin and dark lashes of the face lying on the couch and she quickly makes up her mind. She knows she’s right.

“I need you to go downstairs and pull your car around to the front of the building,” she tells her, keeping her voice low to avoid drawing Bellamy’s attention any more than she already was.

“What? Why?”

Clarke drapes her hands over Octavia’s shoulders and begins to lead her to the door as she continues, “Because if this is what I think it is, he needs to get to a hospital, like, _yesterday_.”

Octavia’s wide green eyes quickly meet Clarkes, the fear in them evident. She answers the question before Octavia has to ask.

“I think Bellamy has bacterial meningitis.”

“What is that?”

“It means that the membranes around his brain and spinal cord are infected,” Clarke explains quickly, trying to keep the explanation as simple as she can. She tries to maintain a clinical front, and she fights to keep the apprehension she feels out of her voice. “It’s not uncommon to have outbreaks on college campuses. It can get bad, and _fast_ , and if he doesn’t get treated quickly enough—"

She stops short, not allowing herself to finish the thought. Octavia takes the hint, grabbing her keys from the hook by the door.

“Call me if you need help getting him downstairs.”

She nods, shutting the door behind her as she turns back to Bellamy. He’s already sleeping again, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. She goes to his side and gently shakes his shoulder to wake him once more.

“Bellamy, come on, I need you to wake up.”

He groans softly, his brows furrowing as his eyes open to meet hers with a haziness. She hopes it’s from sleep and not fever.

“Can you make it downstairs?” she asks softly.

“Where are we going?”

“I want to go get that stiffness in your neck checked out,” she tells him, attempting to keep her tone light as she slips an arm beneath his shoulders. She helps him sit up slowly, taking care not to jolt him any more than necessary. His lack of protest worries her more than anything she’s seen yet. At this point, even he knows he’s not fine.

Clarke wraps a blanket around his shoulders as they make their way to the door with only a few grumbles from Bellamy.

“I’m not sure the plaid on this blanket goes with these shoes,” he teases croakily, and his attempt at humor sends relief soaring in her chest.

They shuffle slowly down the stairs, Clarke leading to provide her hands for support if he needs it, and he does. By the time they reach the car, she can see the fatigue in his eyes. She opens one of the back doors and helps him in, placing a guiding hand on the top of his hair to ensure that he doesn’t hit his head. She shuts the door behind him and makes her way to the other side, sliding in behind Octavia.

“You okay to drive?” she asks.

Octavia nods in the rearview mirror, and Clarke helps Bellamy lie down across the wide backseat, the heat of his cheek searing through fleece of her sweatpants.

The nearly 30-minute drive to the hospital is a silent one, Octavia’s jaw ticking nervously in the same manner her brother’s tends to as she focuses on the road. Clarke’s fingers make their way mindlessly through the messy curls of the sleeping boy in her lap. She doesn’t realize she’s crying until she feels the warm tears on her cheek.

If Octavia notices, she doesn’t say anything.

Her mind weaves its way in and out of memories with her closest friend, eventually working its way back to the day they met. She remembers the glint she saw in his brown eyes, half playful, half seeming to dare her to pick a fight with him. She remembers the heat that rose in her chest, something else mixing with and dulling the sharp edge of the irritation she felt toward him at first. She remembers the begrudging fondness she felt for the challenge he directed at her through his trademark smirk. She remembers the intimidation she felt the first time he called her on her shit, reminding her she doesn’t always have to have the answers all the time, remembers the relief she felt that came with the realization that he was right. She remembers thinking that maybe he felt the same kind of pressure to protect and care for everyone that she felt.

She’s known that she loves Bellamy Blake for a long time, she thinks. A tightness pulls at her chest as she considers what could have happened if Octavia hadn’t come home tonight, or if Bellamy had fallen asleep in his room instead of on the couch. What could have happened if Clarke had lost him before she’d ever truly had him.

She forces herself to shove the thoughts from her mind as Octavia parks the car at the entrance of the emergency room. She rouses Bellamy once again, mentally cringing at disturbing him again when she knows he just wants to rest. Octavia slips Bellamy’s insurance card into Clarke’s hand before pulling away from the curb to park. He weakly grips the hand Clarke offers him for stability, his steps lethargic as they make their way through the sliding doors.

The speed with which the hospital staff gets Bellamy into a room in the emergency department does nothing to calm Clarke’s nerves. Though she’s grateful he’ll be treated quickly, she can’t ignore her mother’s voice in the back of her mind that reminds her, the sickest always have priority.

As they begin to usher him back to a room a nurse stops her with a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, only family is allowed in the patient’s room.”

Clarke doesn’t get the chance to reply.

“She’s family,” Bellamy barks hoarsely. The nurse doesn’t resist when Clarke shoves her way past.

Within minutes, Bellamy is donning a white plastic bracelet and hospital gown that smells faintly of disinfectant. He leans against the pillows of the bed they place him on, his eyes closed and jaw clenched. The room has cleared, and the silence that follows is a stark contrast to the chaos that has just ensued. She listens to the slight rattle that comes with Bellamy’s raspy breaths and the soft sounds of the heart monitor. Her eyes are glued to the monitor’s peaks and valleys, making sure they continue to appear in a steady rhythm, if a bit weaker than she’d like them to be. She doesn’t see his eyes open.

“Clarke,” he says softly, his mouth curling into a small smile as he recognizes what she’s staring so intently at, “I’m okay.”

She makes her way to the edge of his bed without thinking, taking a seat cautiously to avoid jostling him. The words she had intended to speak die on her lips as she looks at him, but she doesn’t mind. What is there to say, really? Her hand moves instinctively to brush a stray curl back from his face, and she thinks how pale his skin looks against the sterile white sheets beneath them. The tan that usually graces his cheekbones is nowhere to be found, but the familiar array of freckles still trickles across nose. Her fingers twitch with the desire to trace them. Even when he doesn’t look like himself, when he is pale and sick and exhausted, he will always have those freckles, those dark eyelashes, that mess of hair that are distinctly Bellamy.

Without her notice, her hand has shifted from his hair to his cheek, her thumb lightly grazing the sharp line of his jaw. He leans into her touch without seeming to realize it, his eyes languidly searching hers.

Clarke jumps when she hears the door opening, reflexively withdrawing her hand. Octavia grumbles something about the ‘ _ridiculous parking at this goddamn hospital_ ’ and heads directly to Bellamy as Clarke returns to her chair near the corner of the room, ignoring the slight disappointment that tugs at her heart.

“Hey, big brother,” she says, dragging a chair to the side of the bed and taking his hand. “Always were a drama queen.”

Bellamy lets out a quiet laugh, teasing, “I’m sorry me almost dying is such an inconvenience for you.”

Clarke stands up sharply and swallows the lump that rises to her throat at his words.

“I, uh—I’m going to go outside and let my mom know what’s going on,” she stammers, her stomach in knots. She locks eyes with Octavia, and the younger girl nods.

“We’re good for a few minutes,” Octavia assures her.

Clarke responds with a small nod of her own. She places her hand on Bellamy’s shoulder on her way out the door.

“I’ll be just down the hall if you need me, okay?”

He gives her a fatigued smile in response, and she quietly slips out of the room. She walks a short way down the hallway to the row of chairs lined in cheap, generic fabric and takes a seat. She dials her mother’s number and is unsurprised when she gets her voicemail at such a late hour.

“Hey, it’s me,” she records, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet hallway. “Just wanted to let you know what’s going on. Octavia and I just brought Bellamy into the emergency room. She got home about an hour ago and he was running a high fever with a lot of stiffness in his neck and back. He’d complained about a headache and a sore neck earlier when we were at Raven’s, but he deteriorated pretty quickly. We haven’t seen a doctor here yet, but…” She trails off, gritting her teeth as she processes the words about to come out of her mouth. “But I’m almost positive it’s bacterial meningitis.”

She’s quiet for a moment as the words echo off of the white walls of the hospital corridor.

“Anyway,” she says, clearing her throat slightly, “I just wanted to let you know we’ll probably have to reschedule our usual Saturday breakfast tomorrow. I have a feeling it’s going to be a late night. Call me when you get this. Love you.”

She hangs up the phone, exhaling sharply as she takes stock of the last few hours. Before she knows it’s happening, her head is in her hands, her elbows resting on her knees in front of her as her shoulders heave with sobs she didn’t realize she was holding in. Her fingers weave into the roots of her hair, the blonde waves still tousled from being awoken in the middle of the night.

She does her best to collect herself quickly, wiping her tears with the back of her hand and straightening the blonde waves on her head. She spots a hospitality area a few feet down the hallway, where she makes two cups of coffee for herself and Octavia. She shoves a handful of sugar packets and creamers into the pocket of her sweatpants, noting with a dry chuckle that she probably looks like hell with her ratty t-shirt, tangled hair, and bare face.

She makes the short walk back to Bellamy’s room, opening the door carefully to avoid spilling the coffee she holds in both hands. She shuts it behind her, turning to find that the Blake siblings are no longer alone in the small quarters. A woman in a white coat stands at the foot of the bed clutching a clipboard, her salt and pepper hair just brushing her shoulders. She looks to be in her early fifties, and Clarke vaguely registers that the way her wire-framed glasses slip down the bridge of her nose slightly looks somewhat familiar.

“Ah,” she welcomes, “you must be Clarke. I’m Dr. Roberts.”

“He needs a spinal tap.”

The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them, and she cringes at the impatience behind them. Thankfully, Dr. Roberts only smiles good-naturedly.

“You’re Dr. Griffin’s daughter, am I correct?” Clarke nods somewhat sheepishly, feeling heat rising to her cheeks. Dr. Roberts’ grin broadens. “Yes, I thought so. I knew I’d seen you around the hospital before.”

She turns her gaze back to Bellamy’s chart, eyes scanning across the paper in front of him.

“You appear to be right, Miss Griffin,” she says with a grave nod. “I’ll get one ordered and be back in a few minutes.”

The physician smiles at her again when she passes on her way out of the room. Clarke moves toward the bed, handing one of the cups of coffee to Octavia and offering her a couple creamers and sugar. She takes them and with a quiet ‘thanks,’ and Clarke pulls up her own chair to the side of the bed.  
Bellamy is awake, but it appears just barely.

“Oh _god_ ,” he groans, and Clarke feels a hint of panic before she sees the smirk slipping onto his face, “she said you were right. We’ll never hear the end of this one.”

Both girls laugh, and Clarke is thankful he’s feeling well enough to still give her shit. The metal rod in the corner catches her eye, and she notes with relief that someone has put Bellamy on an IV drip with fluids and a mild antibiotic while she was out of the room.

They joke casually for a while, using humor to ignore the tension in the room. Clarke feels some relief knowing that Bellamy is here, letting people make sure he’s okay and no longer hiding his pain. But she still feels uneasy not knowing how sick he is yet, or even what he’s sick with.

It’s not long before Dr. Roberts returns, two nurses in tow behind her. One of them, a large man in dark green scrubs, carries a metal tray filled with instruments. At the sight of them, Clarke is taken back to a lecture of her anatomy class in which her professor had described a spinal tap. She remembers with a pang of regret that they can be very uncomfortable, at times painful. Then again, how comfortable can anything be when inserting a four-inch needle into someone’s spinal column?

Dr. Roberts spends a few minutes telling Bellamy what he could expect during the procedure, informing him they’d use a local anesthetic to make the bulk of the process more comfortable. Clarke notices that no one mentions that the local anesthetic tends to burn like fire.

Forms are signed, instruments are organized on the counter at the edge of the room, and before she knows it, Octavia and Clarke are being escorted out of the room as the curtain is drawn closed.

“Wait,” she hears Bellamy call from behind the wall of thin fabric. “Clarke. Let her stay.”

She swallows hard. She meets Octavia’s eye, not wanting his sister to feel slighted, but finds only an indecipherable smile and a small nod. Clarke chooses not to read into it as she glides out the door, her dark hair trailing behind her.

Clarke slips behind the curtain and toward the head of the bed. She pulls a chair to the side. Bellamy has been turned to his side, his shoulders arched forward slightly to expose his back to the team of medical staff on the other side. The crease between his brows softens slightly when he catches sight of her.

“Wouldn’t want Dr. Clarke to miss out on a chance to hover and mother hen everyone,” he jokes.

Clarke rolls her eyes, unable to keep the smile entirely from her lips. When her eyes meet his again, she discovers a note of sincerity appearing from beneath his lashes.

“Thanks, Princess.”

She feels her expression soften. She says nothing, reaching out a hand to take his. Dr. Roberts tells him to expect to feel the coldness of the antiseptic. She sees him stiffen when it makes contact with his skin, and wrinkles her nose at him in a teasing grin.

A moment later, she watches as Dr. Roberts loads a syringe with the anesthetic. She focuses her gaze on Bellamy’s face, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“This might pinch a bit.”

Bellamy sucks in a sharp breath as his eyes clamp shut. Her heart clenches as she watches his jaw tighten, and she skims her fingertips across his palm in small circles. His own fingers curl around hers, taking her small hand in his as he refocuses his eyes on her.

She elects not to watch as Dr. Roberts picks up the much larger syringe a few moments later.

“Okay, Mr. Blake, we’re going to start if you’re ready.”

He gives a small grunt of consent. Clarke tries not to think about how many layers of soft tissue the needle has to pass through before it reaches the cerebrospinal fluid it will extract. Bellamy’s eyes never leave hers through the process, as though he’s using their blue to center himself.

At one point, she feels his grip suddenly tighten around her hand, the muscles in his jaw clenching.

“You okay?” she asks softly.

“Never better,” he retorts through gritted teeth.

She reaches her other hand and affectionately brushes back another of his unruly curls. He gives a halfhearted smile in response.

The procedure feels never-ending, though in reality Clarke guesses it can’t have taken more than twenty minutes or so. As soon as Dr. Roberts has bandaged the insertion site and the tools have found their respective spots on the metal tray, Octavia returns to the room. It’s obvious she didn’t stray far.

“Good?” she asks Bellamy brusquely, the concern in her eyes betraying her nonchalant tone.

“I’m fine, O.”

She nods, her jaw tightening in the same way her brother’s had only a few minutes before. Her gaze shifts to Clarke.

“Well?” she asks impatiently. Clarke shrugs.

“Now they run a culture and some labs on the CSF, probably a cell count or differential count, a Gram stain, maybe a glucose and protein analysis.”

Bellamy snorts.

“In English, if you don’t mind.”

“Basically, they’re going to run some tests and see how bad it looks. We won’t know anything until the labs come back.”

Bellamy lets out a tired sigh, leaning back in bed. It’s been a long night, and now that there’s nothing to do but wait, exhaustion is evident on his face.

“You should get some rest,” Clarke says. “I’ll wake you up when we know something.”

He opens his mouth to protest, but she cuts him off.

“It wasn’t a request.”

His mouth closes and his eyes narrow slightly. He turns to Octavia.

“See?” he says. “She’s right _one_ time and it goes straight to her head.”

She lets out an exaggerated sigh that merges with her laughter. She glances at Octavia and tilts her head implicitly toward the door. She takes the hint, standing from her chair and giving Bellamy’s arm a soft pat before heading toward the door. Clarke follows, flicking the light off and watching the room fall dark except for the glow of the heart rate monitor.

The door latches shut behind them, and the girls make their way to the seating area Clarke had found earlier. They spend a while in a comfortable quiet, each scrolling through their phones, updating their friends on Bellamy’s condition. Octavia finally breaks the silence when Clarke looks up to find the younger Blake examining her thoughtfully.

“You love him.”

It isn’t phrased as a question.

Clarke sighs, rubbing at the bridge of her nose with her fingers, trying to put her thoughts into words. Eventually she just goes with the truth.

“Yes.”

For some reason, Octavia’s lack of surprise doesn’t shock her. Her green eyes narrow, seeming to evaluate Clarke.

“You should tell him,” she states bluntly after a few moments.

Clarke shakes her head with a sad smile.

“He’s my best friend,” she says with a shrug. “I’m not going to risk that. I’m his platonic friend and that’s it, and I’m okay with that.”

Octavia rolls her eyes.

“Yes, because I don’t know about you, but I always lay my head in my _platonic_ friends’ laps. I ask my _platonic_ friends to stay and hold my hand while I’m scared but don’t want to admit it. And I _definitely_ mistake my sister walking in the door in the middle of the night for my _platonic_ friends while I’m delirious with fever.”

Clarke’s breath catches in her throat. Her eyes search Octavia’s face, finding nothing but complete honesty and a knowing smirk that looks far too much like her brother’s.

Dr. Roberts’ arrival prevents her from forming an answer.

“If you ladies want to come with me, I’m going to discuss Mr. Blake’s lab results with him.”

The girls scramble to follow the older woman, and Clarke hears Octavia mutter something that sounds suspiciously like, ‘ _platonic, my ass._ ’ She ignores it, her stomach clenching nervously as they make their way into the room. She can hear Bellamy stir at the sound of the door, and she doubts he was actually sleeping. His eyes squint as Dr. Roberts turns on the lights, and she feels a swell of affection toward the sight of him with sleepy eyes and rumpled hair.

“Well, Mr. Blake,” Dr. Roberts begins, “you are a very lucky man.” She sets her clipboard on the counter and sits in one of the chairs next to the bed. “Based on the white blood cell counts from your spinal tap results, it’s miraculous you’re still with us.”

Clarke feels as though the breath has been pulled from her lungs as she continues.

“It looks as though you have a particularly aggressive case of bacterial meningitis.”

“Shit,” Bellamy swears. He lets out a wry chuckle. “Clarke was right twice in one day? Don’t let her hear you, she has enough of an ego as it is.”

Clarke shoots him a playful glare, and Dr. Roberts laughs.

“You’re very lucky to have her,” she says, sending a kind smile in Clarke’s direction. “If you hadn’t come in when you did…well, let’s just say the outcome could have been a lot worse.”

She forces herself to meet Bellamy’s eyes, finding a warmth there that muddled her thoughts and made her toes tingle.

“As it is,” Dr. Roberts continues, drawing Clarke’s attention again, “you seem to be responding well to the antibiotics in your IV. Your fever has come down somewhat and your blood pressure is much closer to the range we’d like to keep it in. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to admit you for a couple of days and up your dosage of antibiotics to kick this infection.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Bellamy says.

Dr. Roberts tells them she’ll send a nurse back with admission paperwork and a new dosage of antibiotics. They thank her, and she tells him to feel better with a sincerity Clarke has only seen in a few physicians.

As soon as she leaves the room, Bellamy looks at Clarke.

“You should head home. You don’t have to stay. They’re just going to put me in a bed and tell me to watch cartoons or something, and you’ve got to be exhausted.”

“Like hell,” she says, surprised he’d even suggest it. “I’m not going anywhere. Besides, if anyone’s in need of sleep it would be Octavia. I was at least able to get a few hours of sleep before she called me.”

Octavia grumbles words of protest, but the circles beneath her eyes give her away. After several minutes of back and forth between the Blake siblings, Octavia has her keys in her hand.

“You’re sure you’re good?”

Bellamy nods stiffly.

“I’ll be fine. Insufferable as she may be, turns out the Princess has her uses.”

Clarke shoots him a look of exasperation, shaking her head as she says goodbye to Octavia. A few minutes after she leaves, the broad male nurse from earlier enters the room, a bag of fluid in one hand and yet another clipboard in the other. He hands the clipboard and a pen to Bellamy, which he fills out in precise block letters. The fluids—stronger antibiotics, she guesses—are suspended from the IV stand and connected to the small plastic tube that leads down to Bellamy’s arm.

It all happens quickly. Paperwork is filed, a patient transport team assembles, Clarke stops by the gift shop to buy them both some reading material, and before she knows it they’re in a new room on a different floor of the hospital. He seems more comfortable here, despite the fact that he’s still connected to numerous tubes and wires. She can see his fatigue plainly on his face now, the infection and late hour taking their toll. His eyes are closed and he relaxes on the pillows behind him, muslin blankets tossed lightly over his lap. She thinks he’s asleep until she hears his voice.

“Thank you.”

She turns to him quickly, surprised by his words.

“For what?”

He’s quiet for a minute as he appears to collect his thoughts. When he speaks again, his voice is soft.

“For saving my ass today,” he says. “For being Dr. Clarke.”

She laughs softly, afraid of breaking the tranquility that blankets the room.

“You’d have made my job a lot easier if you hadn’t tried to downplay it so much,” she chastises with a smile.

He mutters an apology with a grin that matches her own. Clarke turns back to the book in her lap, and the comfortable silence they’ve grown familiar with fills the room for a while.

“Clarke?” he says after several minutes. Her eyes leave the page in front of her to meet his soft gaze.

“Told you that you wouldn’t miss it.”

She averts her eyes, trying to hide the stupid grin that appears of its own accord. His unfailing confidence in her sends a warmth spreading through her bones.

When she checks on him again a few minutes later, he’s already asleep. As she watches him doze, his tall, broad frame made somehow made smaller by sleep, she is struck by an overwhelming urge to care for him. Not just at 4 am after a long night in the emergency room. She wants to take care of Bellamy Blake at 7 pm in the campus library as he apprehensively runs his hands through his curls and rubs his eyes to fight the exhaustion that plagues him after six hours of studying for a history exam he's already well-prepared for. At 2 pm on a sunny day when his smile is broad, if a bit snarky, and the sun brightens his golden face and adds to his freckles by the minute. She thinks that this boy who has spent his entire life taking care of everyone else deserves to have someone who will do the same for him, in the quiet hours of a late night and in the warm hours of a Saturday morning. 

She thinks she’ll tell him she loves him someday soon. But not tonight. Tonight, they are just Bellamy and Clarke. She takes care of her best friend, and in return he reminds her that she's far more capable than she believes herself to be. Tonight, she gives his hand a gentle squeeze and presses a kiss into his hair as he dreams. Tonight, she thanks her lucky stars that he will have a tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> So there it is! My first Bellarke fic, inspired partly by my own pre-med stresses. Let me know what you think! Tear me apart, rip me to shreds, tell me you loved it, I don't care as long as you comment!


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